Images

A least tern chick rests in the sand before being banded on Poplar Island, MD 

A researcher bands an endangered Least Tern chick on Poplar Island, MD          

Sam Droege (fore) arrived from Patuxent with plants for the Conte Lab's new pollinator garden.  Sam Parker (back) assists with the planting.

Bird Banding Laboratory Biologist, Stephanie Egger, extracts a thrush from a mist net.

Zachary Kelly installs a water temperature logger in Blue Blazes Run, a headwater stream in Catoctin Mountain Park, MD. 

Karmann Kessler and Zachary Kelly install a water temperature logger in Big Hunting Creek in Catoctin Mountain Park, MD.

Steve Walk and crew collect 80+ American shad from the trap at the Holyoke fish lift on the Connecticut River.  Shad behavior will be studied in Kevin Mulligan's V-Trap study.

A team of biologists sits in a circle to weigh and measure captured Red Knots. Photo credit: Zak Pohlenm, USFWS

A Red Knot C. c. roselaari captured at Gray's Harbor with a metal band on its right leg. Photo credit: Zak Pohlen, USFWS

A Red Knot Calidris canutus roselaari standing on the beach at Gray's Harbor.   Photo credit: Zak Pohlenm, USFWS

Kevin Mulligan coordinates the end of the first shad trail in the Palisade Entrance study, a DOE funded study investigating the efficiency of a novel fishway entrance.

Kevin Molongoski (left) and Steve Walk (right) seine adult American shad back into the Burroughs Ponds (resting/exercising pools) following the completion of trial through the Palisade Entrance.

The Palisade Entrance, a novel fishway entrance, was constructed and tested at the Conte Lab's Fish Passage Complex.  Trials were conducted with multiple species, including American shad, to determine entry rate under a variety of hydraulic conditions.

Stephanie Egger smiles for the camera with her Bird Safe Philly program supplies. 

Kevin Molongoski (fore) carries a tagged adult American shad from the fish truck to the Burroughs Pond in the Conte Lab's Fish Passage Complex.  Kevin Mulligan (back) prepares another passive integrated transponder (PIT) tag.

This is the set up of the solar panels at Blackwater National Wildlife Preserve that will be used to power the newly installed sap flow sensors on site. These solar panels will decrease the number of required trips to the site to change batteries and will contribute to the undisturbed data flow from the sensors.

Steve Walk makes final adjustments to innovative oxygen delivery system recently installed on FPDA team's fish truck.

Close up of the newly installed sap flow sensors at Blackwater National Wildlife Preserve. These sensors were installed by EESC's Justine Neville and Ken Krauss of the USGS Wetland and Aquatic Research Center in Lafayette, LA. These sensors will be used to analyze how the trees in a marsh ecosystem respond to changing ecological and climatic conditions.

A pair of Canada Geese forage with their two newly hatched goslings on Eastern Ecological Science Center's campus on Patuxent Research Refuge. 

Marty Garcia and Sam Parker begin installing the timber boards for the 30' x 10' raised bed of a pollinator garden behind the orchard at the USGS Conte Lab.

EESC USGS Mendenhall Fellow Justine Neville installing sap flow probes at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge with USGS colleague Ken Krauss from USGS Wetland and Aquatic Research Center in Lafayette, LA. Sap flow probes will be used to monitor transpiration rates in coastal forests to assess the water usage of trees experiencing stress from inundation.